On July 16, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. A robbery attack on a Polotsk taxi driver has been solved, the Information and Public Relations Department of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee informed BELTA correspondent. In the evening of July 12, a sole proprietor from Polotsk, who provides passenger transportation services in his car, was attacked by a passenger. The man, who asked to be taken to a lake in the village of Trosno, not far from this settlement, instead of paying by the meter, attacked the taxi driver with a knife. The loot of the robber, who managed to escape, was Br460 thousand. The victim was assisted by vacationers at the lake – they called the police and an ambulance. The sole proprietor was taken to the hospital with multiple stab wounds to the abdominal cavity, chest, head, and right thigh. A investigative task force, led by the Deputy Head of the Criminal Police of the Regional Internal Affairs Directorate, carried out extensive work to identify the attacker: a thorough inspection of the scene, processing of recordings from a dozen external surveillance video cameras at the Polotsk railway station, where the robber got into the taxi driver's car, yielded results. Coordinated interaction of the operational services of the Internal Affairs Directorate, Polotsk District and City Departments, the forensic unit, and the Investigative Committee made it possible to identify the suspect with certainty within two days. He turned out to be a resident of Polotsk born in 1987. He has been detained. A criminal case has been initiated against him for robbery of a man under Part 3 of Article 207 of the Criminal Code of Belarus, which provides for 8 to 15 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property. Attacks on taxi drivers in recent years are a rare occurrence, the Internal Affairs Directorate noted. A similar case occurred in the Rossony District in 2009. Two young men, intoxicated, killed a taxi driver from Novopolotsk. As it turned out, the young men were driven by the desire to seize the car. At that time, law enforcement agencies managed to quickly solve the crime thanks to the assistance of taxi drivers. -0-

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